I keep little scraps of paper around with my grocery and errand list. The other day I decided to knock off one of these lists while on my lunch hour.
It read:
Sparklers
Leash
Hand cream
Upon glancing at each item I was taken aback by the amount of depth packed into this little list.
Why the sparklers?
This weekend I’m going to visit a friend from college. She’s a beautiful person, lots of fun, has an amazing smile, and is full of spunk. Unfortunately, she’s quite sick. She’s the sort of sick where you can’t take food when you visit (since she can’t eat) and flowers or get well cards seem . . .well. . . morbid. I was at a loss for what to take. So. . . I asked her. What can I bring? She came up with sparklers! Excellent idea. Tomorrow is the 4th of July and I can’t imagine anything more fun than sitting out on a deck or the driveway lighting up sparklers. So. . . getting that first item on my list was of highest priority at that moment.
Why the leash?
My dog, Frannie, is ten. When I got her I had (still have) one of the nice, short, leather leashes – the kind for well-contained walks. A good friend of mine had a wonderful dog named Nika. Nika was in her later years and had a heavy-duty, super duper, long, retractable, fancy leash. My friend decided that Frannie, in her rambunctious puppy mode, would have better use for that leash. Up until a week ago we used it daily. On a hot morning walk, when I thought Frannie would sooner have me carry her in than go around the block again, a squirrel zipped past. She took off for the squirrel, the leash slipped from my hand, and the heavy-duty plastic landed in just the wrong spot. No more leash from Nika. That was a sad moment, but I was happy to think about the number of years of good use we all got out of that leash. So, it’s time to break in a new, long, leash and maybe another lucky puppy will end up using it down the road.
And what’s up with the hand cream?
I had a dreadful hostessing moment. My mother was a great hostess. I try to keep my home in a way that she could walk in at any moment and I’d have all my bases covered – meaning I could offer a clean house and a fur-free place to sit, something to drink, something to eat, and be able to offer anything a person needed. Last weekend some friends came over after a hot, sunny day downtown. They were fried. Red-in-the-face, sunburned, painful, fried. One of them asked if I had any lotion she could use. Absolutely! I grabbed the lotion from my bathroom closet only to find it was . . . . empty. Yup. So. The hand cream ranks right up there in my mind with a bad hostess moment. Hopefully my mom wasn’t watching. In the future I’ll be ahead of the game.
So. . . . . what’s the point of all this? Next time you look at your grocery list – or your errand list – instead of thinking how annoying it is that you have to take the time to run the errand or get the picky little things, think about the importance behind it. Chances are you’re doing some good for your life, or others, with that little piece of paper.
